The silence that followed Ling Zhan’s collapse was heavier than the White Bone Mountains themselves.
The air in the dark cave seemed frozen, trapped between damp rocky walls weeping steady droplets of water.
On the ground, Ling Zhan—that arrogant youth and scion of an influential family who had long strutted with conceit through the halls of the Bright Sword Sect—lay motionless, completely unconscious, while fragments of his spiritual sword were scattered around him, shattered into thousands of fine pieces merely by colliding with Dark’s pure physical aura.
As for Qing’er, the maiden with pearl-colored hair and a physique gifted with the Cold Wind Bloodline, she stood rooted to the spot as if carved from stone with meticulous care.
Her wide eyes trembled with terror and awe as she looked alternately at her companion sprawled on the ground like a lifeless corpse and at the young man standing before her.
Dark looked like a masterpiece forged by heavenly demons and cosmic laws combined; his pristine white hair draped calmly over his broad shoulders, and his pearl-red eyes, inside of which cosmic nebulas and burning stars spun, gazed at her devoid of ordinary human emotion—a look akin to a deity watching an ant flailing along its preordained path.
Qing’er realized in that instant that everything she had learned about the cultivation world, all the rules imposed by the Bright Sword Sect, and all the arrogance instilled by the major families were mere fragile illusions before a truly terrifying entity that had suddenly appeared from nowhere.
Her rosy lips tried to form a single word, to ask, “Who are you?”, but her tongue froze in her throat, as though Dark’s aura had swallowed the air surrounding her voice.
In the depths of Dark’s sea of consciousness, the luxurious golden-arched screen glowed with a faint, steady light, recording every minor detail of this dramatic scene:
========================================
[ Link Network and Activity Report ]
• Linked Target: Qing’er (Training Level: Body Condensing Stage – Level 7)
• Bloodline Status: Cold Wind Bloodline (Successfully multiplied and merged to match the User’s body)
• Ongoing Multiplication Rate (100x):
* Absorption of ambient spiritual energy: Multiplying (100fold)
* Activation of neural energy pathways: Multiplying (100fold)
• Notice: The target is experiencing a state of deep psychological shock; it is recommended to establish psychological dominance to ensure absolute loyalty.
========================================
Dark felt a slight trickle of cold, pure energy flowing invisibly from Qing’er’s body into his muscular pathways, stimulating more latent vitality within his cells.
The system was beginning to enforce its hidden law; every breath the maiden took, every spiritual pill she trained with in the future, and every flash of insight she achieved in her techniques would return manifold to pour into Dark’s balance, while she remained under the illusion that her own strength was growing.
It was absolute exploitation, but in a cruel world governed by the law of the jungle, it was far more merciful than the death awaiting her had she encountered another ruthless practitioner.
Dark moved slowly, taking a single step forward.
He made no sound, but Qing’er felt her heart leap out of its place and stop beating for a moment.
She stepped back involuntarily until her back hit a cold rock, and said in a faint, trembling voice dripping with fear:
“You…
you are not a sect disciple…
What do you want from us?
If you desire resources and treasures, you can take everything Ling Zhan carries in his spatial pouch, just…
just leave us be.”
Dark stopped two steps away from her, his crimson eyes reflecting on her trembling face.
He spoke in a deep, calm, yet commanding tone that made refusal impossible:
“Resources?
The spatial pouch of that insect on the ground is worthless in my eyes, just as the Bright Sword Sect you belong to is nothing more than a small village living at the bottom of a dark well.” Dark leaned down slightly to be at eye level with her, continuing in a mocking tone: “As for you, Qing’er…
From the moment your foot stepped into this cave and my fingers touched your shoulder, you no longer possess the right to choose between staying or leaving.
You now bear the mark of my ownership.”
Qing’er felt a terrifying chill run down her spine, but strangely enough, Dark’s words, despite their harshness and oddity, did not evoke a desire to scream as much as they stirred a deep sense of absolute submission within her soul, as though something in her blood and lineage had responded to an irresistible sovereign call.
Her internal energy pathways suddenly unlocked, and the cold wind aura surrounding her began to surge and stabilize in a way she had never dreamed of during her long years of training in the sect.
She realized, despite her terror, that her bottleneck—which had resisted breaking for months—had shattered easily, leaping directly into a new stage and bypassing obstacles that would have taken years of grueling effort.
Meanwhile, paying no mind to her small evolution, Dark slowly extended his right hand toward Ling Zhan’s prone body.
Thanks to the “Eternal Replication” feature and sovereign abilities derived from merging techniques, he did not even need to manually search the spatial pouch; a faint wave of energy passed from his fingers to pierce the pouch’s defenses, extracting all its mid-grade spirit stones, Qi gathering pills, and rare herbs, while the “Absolute Comprehension” feature analyzed Ling Zhan’s sword technique in a fraction of a second, dissecting it down to its flaws and fatal weaknesses, then recrafting it within his mind into a superior sword technique outperforming the original manifold—even though he had no intention of using a sword anyway, as his fists and the “Divine Elephant” power were enough to shatter the heavens.
========================================
• Copied and Assimilated: [Bright Sword Technique (Original Flawed Version)]
• Developed and Modified Technique: [Chaotic Divine Sword Fist (Upgraded Level)]
• Successfully Looted Resources: [50 Mid-grade Spirit Stones, 3 Qi Gathering Pills, Blood-Purifying Herb]
Dark stood in his majestic posture, tossing the empty pouch aside near Ling Zhan, who began to moan softly as scattered consciousness slowly returned to him after the shock of the aura.
Dark turned toward the cave exit, where the faint twilight sun reflected off the giant trees at the edge of the White Bone Mountains, and said in a calm voice carrying the echoes of a grand plan:
“Get up, Qing’er.
Our true journey has not yet begun.
The Bright Sword Sect awaits us, and after that…
the entire world.”
Qing’er looked at the silver-haired, crimson-eyed youth, and found herself moving automatically to follow his footsteps, leaving behind everything she had known and all her old fear, to step alongside him toward a destiny no one in this world could imagine—a destiny charted by an interloper who neither believes in fate nor acknowledges the laws of the heavens.
”Thank you for reading Chapter 3!
Will the Bright Sword Sect realize the storm heading their way?
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